


An Angel Watches Over You

by bitchblossom



Series: Monday 'Verse [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gabe avoids shit, Gen, Guardian-Ward Relationship, Weechesters, loads of feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-12
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-19 06:47:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/880691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitchblossom/pseuds/bitchblossom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam Winchester is born on a Monday. Gabriel, trickster archangel and partier extraordinaire, must own up to his responsibility for a child who turns out to be more unique than expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In The Beginning, God Created Sam Winchester (and Gabriel Wept)

Samuel Winchester is born on a Monday. Gabriel feels it, knows he's just had _another_ child added to the list of his charges, and yet something about this one is different. He doesn't pay it any mind until six months later, however, when a small child's piercing scream interrupts the party he's having with a small remnant of the hippie/free love movement. Silently he stands, puts his shirt back on, and makes his way through the assortment of bodies to the cool calm of a California night in November. Closing his eyes, he takes a breath and reaches for the first time in who knows how long, and he _feels_ it. Feels the waves of shock and horror from a child slightly older than the one he's responsible for, and feels the taint in his tiny one's blood. He can practically hear the sirens and the screams, the gentle sobbing of the older boy as he clutches his baby brother to his chest, and for the first time in a long time, Gabriel feels pain.

 

After that night, Gabriel's easy life gets harder. Every time Sam feels sad, hungry, or alone, Gabriel feels it too. Not as if he were human, but as if Sam's feelings are linked directly to what might once have been called Gabriel's heart. He tries to drown it out, tries to bury the desperate pleading for help underneath a thick layer of indulgence and sin, but it never works. Years pass, and as the boy grows older his guardian angel realizes that what they both feel most of all is _guilt_. His is for leaving the child who is his responsibility to his own devices. Sam's, however, is murky and impossible to source, which only leaves Gabriel burdened with more guilt. No child, he thinks, ought to have to bear what this child has been given to bear, but even if he did come out of hiding there would be little even an archangel could do. Every time the boys' father (John the bastard, as Gabriel had mentally dubbed him) leaves his sons to their own devices and is gone a little too long, the angel is forced to watch helplessly as his child, the boy who was born to his care, is abandoned by yet another man who should have been taking care of him. He spends more time and effort than ever attempting to find escape in the substances that humans use to remove themselves from their problems, but to no avail. Grace is a powerful thing, and its healing power extends a bit further than Gabriel would like. Still, some relief is better than none, and Gabriel does what he can.


	2. Prayers

Gabriel still remembers the day he first heard Sammy praying. He'd been wandering the country for a while, always looking for the same thing: a quick fuck and a good high. He knew it wasn't doing him any good, wasn't ever going to help, but as long as he could fool himself he could pretend. He'd been in Troy, Ohio for almost a week when he heard it—he had been able to feel Sam's stronger emotions before, but this was different. This was a voice, loud and clear in his head, and he knew it couldn't be anyone but Sam.

 

“Okay, so I've never done this before and I don't know if I'm doing it right, but Dean says everyone has a guardian angel who's supposed to watch over them or whatever, and I looked it up in a book and it said Gabriel is the angel of Monday, so I guess that makes you my angel. Anyway, Dad's been gone for two weeks now, and Dean keeps saying it's okay but I'm really not stupid, you know? He's hiding it from me because I'm a kid, but we're running out of money, and Dean's gone late on the weekends and... I'm scared for him. I don't know where Dad is, and I don't know what Dean's doing, but he won't talk about it and he won't tell me where he's getting the money because I know what Dad left us is gone, but I think it's illegal and I really don't want him to get in trouble, so... Can you help us? I don't know if you can even hear me, and if Dean catches me he'll laugh, but nobody else is going to do anything, so, please?”

 

The pain had been welling up in Gabriel's heart since the boy first said his name, and at the tiny broken whisper that was the final word, he had to clench his fists and grit his teeth to keep the hot tears from spilling at the corners of his eyes. He was alone this time, thank God ('As if God had anything to do with it,' he thought bitterly), so there was no one to notice the dazed look on his face as he reached out to the child, intending merely to calm his trembling soul. As he focused in on the small presence, however, he noticed something strange: Sammy was a lot closer than usual. Closing his eyes, Gabriel extracted the address of the boys' run-down motel room from the sea of information that his Grace made available to him, and he was astonished to discover that his young charge was less than twenty miles from the apartment he had made his own for the time being. Instinct told him to go, to see exactly what the boys' situation was and to do something about it. But then he remembered what would result from an impulsive use of his Grace on Heaven's errand (which helping his assigned charge was, without a doubt), and forced himself to stay put. Tomorrow was Monday, he realized, and Monday meant that Sammy would be in school. Perhaps an opportunity would present itself then.


	3. Grace (and other things)

Every child, when they are born, receives a portion of their guardian angel's Grace. Being an angel, Gabriel is equipped to see the shreds of his Grace in those assigned to his care, and in the thousands of years he has been on earth he has seen many of them. Some have buried the scrap of heaven deep inside, drowning it like he has in alcohol and drugs, in the darkness that lurks at the edges of every soul waiting to be admitted. Some have fanned the flames, and shine brightly even to human eyes through kind words and unselfish lives. Some—most—ignore its existence, leaving it a faint glimmer in the aura that is their visible soul. Still, with all the variations and eccentricities he's experienced, nothing could have prepared him for his first glimpse of Sammy's soul.

 

He'd followed the pull of Sam's presence to a suburban middle school, where he tried desperately to avoid looking like a creepy pedophile by locating a nearby coffee shop and ordering the sugariest drink on the menu before seating himself outside and waiting. He knew Sam would be walking home, and the most direct route back to the dingy motel went right past the coffee shop (he'd checked), and he had nothing better to do that day. So he people-watched, picking out easily the ones who were unlucky enough to have _him_ as their guardian angel and wondering what they'd think if they knew that the scruffy hobo-man ingesting sugar at an alarming rate was, in fact, a celestial being eons old who was charged with their well-being. He chuckled to himself at the mental image of one particular woman's appalled and disgusted face upon hearing the ridiculous statement and took another swig of his coffee

 

Sometime in the middle of the afternoon (Gabriel had quit checking the time after his fourth mocha with extra whipped cream) a steady stream of 11- to 14-year-olds began emerging from the school, and he returns his attention to the direction from which his target will be coming. Nothing stands out at first, until suddenly his heart stops. The boy walking towards him is perfectly normal in all human respects: about twelve years old, in the slightly pudgy stage just before puberty, with shaggy brown hair and brown eyes. His clothes are ragged in the manner of those faking a life above the poverty line, and he stares intently at the sidewalk with his hands gripping the straps of his backpack as he walks. But the thing that takes Gabriel's breath away is the way the boy's soul can be seen even from this distance, bright and shining—and then Sam is close enough that Gabriel can see the deep red taint of demon blood, faint but visible, and the black cloud of fear threatening to envelope the golden glow of Grace that penetrates every corner of his young, valiant soul. Gabriel would turn his head if he could, would look away and spare himself the heartache that results from seeing for the first time the evidence of his neglect, but his eyes are frozen on the gut-wrenching sight until Sammy, unsuspecting, passes him by.

 

Gabriel spends that night getting higher than should be possible in his hotel room with the lights off.


	4. The Hobo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief foray into Sam's POV.

It was Wednesday when Sam finally noticed that the same scruffy man had been sitting outside Jumpin' Java all week, always with a cup of coffee in hand and always staring intently at him as he passed. It made him nervous, yeah, but he knew better than to act scared. If there was one thing Dad and Dean had both taught him, it was never to let someone know how scared you were. Besides, he was probably just a hobo who'd charmed or guilt-tripped the employees of the coffee shop into giving him a free drink.

 

On Friday, as he packed up his books and left the school, Sam wondered if the man would still be there. Sure enough, as he approached the coffee shop he saw the familiar brown jacket and toboggan, and for the first time he made eye contact with the stranger. He had expected the man to look away, or perhaps to leer at him, but the response he got was entirely different. As he met the golden-brown eyes the stranger smiled, but not menacingly or condescendingly. His face was hard to read under his bushy untrimmed beard, but Sam recognized a strangely _sorrowful_ expression, and he almost frowned at the pang of sympathy that made itself known in his chest. The man continued to watch him as he grew closer, and on a sudden impulse he stopped level with the stranger's chair.

 

“Hey mister, can I help you?” The question tumbled out before he could stop it, and he swore he saw pain in the stranger's eyes before it was hidden behind a well-used mask of cheerfulness.

 

“No, that's alright. You just...you remind me of someone I care a lot about.” Sam nodded, wondering briefly why the man had paused.

 

“Okay. Well, have a nice day then.” With a small smile and a nod he was on his way, not wanting to worry Dean by being late.

 

He never heard the soft whisper of “You too, Sammy.”


	5. An Alley, An Angel, and a Brother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, so I should probably warn for some noncon involving Dean and an unnamed male in this chapter... if that isn't your thing, feel free to skip ahead. This chapter isn't particularly vital.  
> 

Slowly, knees shaking and hands trembling, Gabriel left the coffee shop and headed back to his hotel. The little bit of coffee that remained in his paper cup went cold on the dresser as he made his preparations for that evening, stopping in his tracks every now and then to brush against the shred of Grace belonging to Sammy to make sure he was alright. By the time his connection to Sam alerts him to Dean's departure, he's shaved and dressed and looks, for the first time in a while, rather presentable. 

 

He has no idea where he's going at first, but having been in the city for two weeks he does have a general idea of the places Dean would be frequenting. Sammy's prayed exactly once since Sunday, but with that one short prayer came a sinking feeling as Gabriel realized what it was that Dean was doing to keep himself and his brother afloat. Thank God (wherever he might be now and if in fact he'd had anything to do with it), Sam didn't seem to know what was going on besides that Dean was out late on the weekends and came home looking like he'd been fighting. Gabriel couldn't help wishing that, this once, Sammy could be right.

 

As he makes his way down the street, Gabriel tucks himself tighter into his jacket and shivers, the dun-green canvas doing little to keep the late autumn chill off. He plans in his head, wondering how he's going to explain to a teenaged boy that his little brother needs him so his guardian angel is coming to stop him from whoring himself out for grocery money. The angel part probably isn't going to actually be part of the conversation, and mentioning Sammy will probably make Dean highly suspicious, so Gabriel figures his best bet will be to play the well-meaning passerby who intervenes because he sees a crime against a minor, not because the minor in question has a little brother who's been praying to a being he doesn't even believe in because of his big brother.

 

It takes until almost ten-thirty pm to find Dean, and when he does Gabriel almost bursts a blood vessel. He'd pictured finding the kid standing on a street corner, lounging against a building, maybe getting kicked out of a seedy bar, but even though he knew exactly what Sammy's older brother was up to he was still shocked. He's been checking the alleys, just in case, but then he spots them. An older man, fly open and head back against the brick behind him, with a blonde head bobbing at his exposed crotch.

 

He's done worse things than getting—or giving—a blowjob in an alley, but at least then all involved parties were consenting adults. This is a sixteen-year-old boy, trying desperately to keep his little brother fed and clothed and feeling at least semi-normal by selling himself on the streets. Gabriel's blood boils, and he makes his move without a second thought. In less than a second he's standing beside the startled pair, gripping the man's wrists as he hauls him away from the boy, who stands and stares as Gabriel resists the temptation to beat the vile human to a bloody pulp and settles for merely cracking a few ribs and bloodying his nose before sending him packing, trousers almost around his ankles as he stops at the entrance of the alley to make himself semi-decent.

 

“Who the hell are you and what was that? You're obviously not a cop or you'd've arrested him, so who do you think you are meddling in my business?” Dean's tone is defensive, angry, but beneath it Gabriel hears relief, gratitude for finally not having to be the adult in a situation.

 

“Who I am is not important. What is important is that you get back to your little brother, who's been waiting up for you.” With that, Gabriel presses a stack of bills into Dean's hand (he may be pretending to be human, but he's still an archangel/trickster god, and it has it's perks) and turns, intending to vanish as soon as he exits the alley. What he gets, however, is Dean grabbing him by the shoulder and spinning him around, slamming him into the brick with considerable strength for a twink-built teenager.

 

“Who the hell are you and how do you know about Sammy?” he growls, voice low and menacing now. Gabriel knows he could just disappear, leave him wondering what sort of spirit would stop a crime and pay the victim before vanishing into thin air, but that's not what he came here to do. So he takes a deep breath and gently but firmly grasps Dean's wrists and steps away from the wall.

 

“Someone who cares about you and your brother. Now take what I gave you and go, before I do something we'll all regret.” Unable to resist any longer, he raises a hand and snaps his fingers, vanishing before Dean can get out much more than a splutter.


	6. "Thanks."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, short chapter, but oh well.

When he materializes in his hotel room, he barely has the energy to strip off his good clothes before falling into bed, asleep the moment his head hits the pillow despite the fact that he doesn't _need_ to sleep, because fuck it, he _wants_ to.

 

“Hey Gabriel, it's Sam again. I figure you're probably busy with whatever archangels do all day, but I wanted to say thank you for whatever it was you did the other night. Dean came home earlier than usual, and he hasn't been back out all weekend, and he's not as worried about stuff lately. I guess that was you, so... Thanks.” 

 

At the sound of the boyish voice, Gabriel turned off the radio and rolled up his windows. Sam's short but heartfelt prayer came as he was cruising down the highway the following Monday afternoon, 'getting the hell out of Dodge' as he'd explained it to himself. They'd run into each other by accident, he decided, and it wasn't going to happen again no matter how much he wanted to see Sammy. When next they met, it would be intentional and necessary, not by happenstance. Still, he felt as though he needed to keep an eye on the boy, and the least he could do was stay tuned in to his prayers. 


	7. "Hey Gabriel...."

Things were different after that week. Gabriel left town, got the hell out of Dodge, shook the dust of Troy, Ohio off his feet and never looked back, but that didn't change the fact that things had changed. It took a while to get used to being tuned into a human's prayers after so many years of blocking them out, but at least the intentional contact softened his connection to Sam's emotions. He grew accustomed to hearing the boy's voice, and it got to the point where he refused to sleep until he did. It was lucky for him that as an angel he didn't need sleep, because the fact that they were rarely in the same time zone meant that Sam's soft narrative often came through at 3am, or in the middle of the afternoon. 

 

Along with the familiarity came an odd regularity to the solemn sound of Sam's still-childish voice. Gabriel noticed, after a while, that they were coming at regular 24-hour intervals, even if an evening's prayer consisted of merely a recitation of the day's events, and it touched him to see how sincerely the kid actually believed in him. Every night, without fail, Sammy would settle himself into a corner where no one would notice or disturb him, and he would talk. Sometimes he was cheerful (“I made an A in World History!” or “Dad's been back for a month now.”), sometimes he was worried (“Dean's been going out late again,” “Dad got drunk and gave Dean a black eye.”) and sometimes he was sad (“I dreamed about Mom last night. She said she's never met you but she's sure you'll take good care of me.”), but he never forgot. For Gabriel it was a gut-wrenching reminder of just how much he'd already botched his job as the boy's guardian angel, but he wouldn't have given it up for the world. If he sent out an occasional strand of Grace to soothe and calm Sam's own, or manipulated a few extra twenties into Dean's hand on a “working night”, that was nobody's business but his own.


	8. Accepted

Five and a half years passed without much variation in Gabriel and Sam's routine. Their paths crossed a few times, mostly intentionally, but as far as Gabe knew Sammy never figured it out. Never guessed that he was being stalked (sort of) by a lonely and guilt-ridden celestial being to whom he'd told his entire life story by the time he was fifteen. Never imagined that the honey-haired substitute teacher he loved so much in 10th grade was actually an archangel who'd been trying for years to stay out of sight but had finally given in to the temptation to interact with the one child he cared about. No, he'd been careful, never using the same disguise twice (not that it was difficult. Trickster archangel, remember?), never staying very long, never (well, almost never) showing any especial favoritism towards Sam. It had worked, and for the most part they had been fairly pleasant years. Gabriel spent less time trying to get himself stoned, drunk, or laid, and Sam spent more time getting taller and smarter.

 

Sam had just turned eighteen when he (and by default, Gabriel) found out he'd been accepted to Stanford. His prayers were joyful that night, but a strain of worry nudged at Gabriel through the strand of their connected Grace. It didn't take long to figure out that Sammy wasn't planning on telling his family just yet, and while Gabriel couldn't agree more with his decision to keep the information from John the Bastard, he couldn't help wishing that Sam would confide in his older brother. Dean seemed to care for his younger brother, despite the tough guy exterior he put on in front of their father. Gabriel had seen what he was willing to sacrifice for Sammy, and it made the archangel's sort-of heart ache for both of the boys when he thought about how much more he could have done.

 

That was all behind them, though, and the present was so much more important now. Sam could get out of the hunter's life (a dangerous and unrewarding one, for the most part) and have his own future, his own home, a family and a life. It was the opportunity Gabriel wished he could have given Sam, but somehow the fact that he'd earned it himself made it even more precious. 

 

Now that Sam was going to be out on his own, Gabriel decided, it was high time he quit shirking his duties. He wanted to be a part of Sam's life, and if that meant creepily stalking him from a (short) distance, then so be it. Stanford wasn't far from his current haunt in southern Nevada, so Gabriel decided to go ahead and establish himself in the town. Maybe he'd take a few classes, get a job, do something useful for once in his life. He could keep an eye on Sammy better that way, probably, he reasoned. So a week later, he'd established himself in a small but luxurious apartment in downtown Stanford, CA and was carefully reconnoitering the town in search of a place of employment likely to be frequented by students. He settled finally on a coffee shop about ten minutes' walk from his apartment and five from the law library, and within fifteen minutes of meeting the manager had been hired as their newest barista. This was going to be an interesting experience, he mused as he wiped down the counter after his first shift. Still, he'd done stranger things.


End file.
